Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,13

way she did with me now. Pity liberally splashed with sadness. She was the younger one, but somehow was always the more practical of the two of us, especially since our parents died.

“Honey, hating him in death would be just as hard as loving him.”

I winced at the truth of her words. “I do hate him. For dying. For leaving me here with two boys, having to deal with his fucking mother, the bitches at school. All the decisions about life that we were supposed to make together.” No tears trailed down my face—I’d dried myself out of those long ago.

Alexis reached over to squeeze my hand. “I’m here. I’m not going to let you handle any of this alone.”

I stared at my sister. “I wish Mom and Dad were here.”

Her eyes turned glassy. “Yeah, me too. The boys deserve two grandparents that weren’t born in the bowels of hell.”

I giggled at the break in sorrow.

Alexis had met my mother-in-law at various family gatherings over the years, but she’d seen her at full power after the funeral, on the day of David’s anniversary when she came over for dinner to ‘honor David’s memory.’

She was usually on her best behavior when Alexis was around, but it seemed that she had heard about the reputation I’d built for myself this past year and was not impressed, so her claws were out.

Alexis had casually disliked her out of loyalty for me before all of this, but it was safe to say she was ready to call a priest and have her exorcised.

“Thank you,” I said. “For coming. For having my back. For calling me every single morning after you left to get me up. You’re the best sister, the best friend I could ever ask for.”

“I know,” she said, sipping her wine with a grin.

I tried to grin back. Took a large sip.

Marley was right. Wine wasn’t going to heal anything, but it was doing a good job of numbing me.

“You have a new neighbor,” Alexis said, snatching a water bottle from the fridge. Sweat glistened off her in a way that managed to be almost sexy instead of disgusting.

Nevertheless, I was disgusted by her. It was seven in the morning and she’d already gone running. She did not look at all hungover after the two bottles of wine we had last night. I, on the other hand, was on my third cup of coffee and could barely think around my headache.

The five years between us were never more obvious than they were now.

I couldn’t wait for time to catch up to her, her metabolism to shut down, her tits and ass to sag. That lineless face to crease with age and stress.

It was an ugly thing of me to think but I felt ugly lately. I was jealous that my sister had youth, a different life, an area in her chest that still housed a beating heart and not just a jumble of minced up flesh.

I didn’t bother to look out the window. “Oh, yeah. The Hendersons moved out. He cheated on her with their pool boy or something.” I waved my hand in dismissal. Normally, I’d be filled to the brim with details of the entire scandal, down to the name, age, and physical fitness of the pool boy in question.

As it was, I had lost touch with the den of vipers I’d pretended to be friends with. I figured they got bored of the whole ‘wallowing widow’ thing after the first month. I didn’t begrudge them for it, it was who they were, and I’d likely have tried to poison them if they’d continued coming over with faux sympathy and wine.

My sister and my boys, that was all I needed.

And my best friend Lydia who’d spent a month sleeping in my bed with me when it all first happened. A month was a long time in Lydia’s world. She was a free-spirited, travel photographer who lived the fabulous life I might have if it hadn’t been for getting knocked up and married.

Not that I was jealous of her.

Not much at least.

She called every day, promised she would drop everything to come stateside if I needed her. Lydia didn’t make empty promises, but it was one I’d never make her keep. She was one of the most talented photographers I’d ever seen and she was brilliantly happy when she was capturing the world. When she wasn’t doing that, she lost her light.

I wasn’t going to be responsible for my one friend